Drumroll Please.......

Ever since I found out that I was going to Italy, my mind jumped from the constant "which country am I going to?" question to the "but where in Italy am I going?". Unsurprisingly, not only were these questions constant companions in my head, but they were also ever-present as a question I got asked in daily conversation. By the District Conference at the end of April, not only was I tired of explaining that "no, I really have no idea where I was going", but also a tad bit jealous of everyone who did know.
Ever since I found out I was going to Italy, my daily email checking always began with a speedy scan of my emails, picking out anything out of the ordinary, any emails from senders that I didn't recognize, and getting extremely excited with anything out of the ordinary, only to realize after opening that it is not, indeed, communications from Italy, but instead a reminder to create a CollegeBoard account from my history teacher. Just a bit of a letdown.(ok. not going to lie...this kind of makes it sound like I ready to step right into a junk mail scam...but I'm careful! Promise!).
So it was with much excitement and hyperventilation that I opened a short, simple email from a supposed "Clio" on April 29. The subject was simply "Trieste!" so I really had no idea what it was, but upon opening I immediately was flooded with a similar excitement as finding out I was going to Italy. The email read,
"Hi! I'm Clio, your next family's bigger daughter. I'm going abroad too next year but we wanted to contact you to let you know our family. We also wanted to know what subjects you'd like to study here in Trieste so that we can enroll you to the most appropriate school! Let us know as soon as possible. Add me on facebook so that we can communicate with no problems! Hope to hear you soon, bye :" 

So, without further ado, I am ecstatic to announce that I will be spending the next year in Trieste, Italy! So where is Trieste? As soon as my eyes had bounced off of the email, I immediately went to my trusty friend google since I didn't even recognize the name "Trieste" let alone know much about it. As it turns out, Trieste is a port town of about 250,000 in very very very very very northeastern Italy, so extremely so that at first glance it doesn't actually appear to be a part of Italy at all! It is right next to the borders of Slovenia and Croatia, and should be a wonderful melting pot of cultures. Here's a little visual reference:

See the little red dot next to Slovenia? That's Trieste!

Here are some photos compliments of google images

See! Right next to the ocean!

Looking forward to the architecture....

While it's not Venice(venice is about a 1.5 hour drive away according to our other good friend google maps), Trieste does have one (I think) large canal.

Anyway, I do not know much about my host family yet other than the name of my host sister who emailed me (Clio) but will also be on exchange(in Mexico) next year, and the name of Clio's mom (my first host mother), Ilaria. I know very little about Trieste, so feel free to chime in if you know more than me. 

~Ciao!

Rotary District Conference--Yosemite!

After about a month of studying Italian, the Rotary District 5130 Conference was the last weekend of April. The district conference is an opportunity for all of the rotarians from District 5130 to gather(this year in Yosemite) to discuss the year in terms of rotary. All of the inbound and outbounds, along with a few rebounds, came to the district conference to present about Rotary Youth Exchange, explore Yosemite, and have one last orientation/get together before we all either leave for our host countries or return home. It was a great weekend full of driving, smiles, laughter, great people, and more driving. Picture time!(because everyone would rather look at pictures than read lots of writing).

Our crazy bus ride to Yosemite--first we had to drive 4 hours to meet the bus, then we drove 5 hours on the bus. 

Playing with our flags in the gym that we stayed in--very blurry since we were all running to get in the picture.

Practicing for our district conference presentation--most of us are still in PJs!

In Yosemite! We got to take lots of group pictures. It was raining even though there was some snow on the ground.

Buddies!

The whole group (everyone else at the falls was giving us some strange looks...though for the most part people found it pretty entertaining).

It was gorgeous in Yosemite!

    

Our whole group of exchange students during our official presentation at the district conference.

Final group photo at the district conference...this time we are all in our blazers!

All in all, it was great weekend. It was so hard to say goodbye at the end knowing that there are some people that we may never see again, but I think we were all grateful for the amazing friendships that we made.